Rupert Read, Lead MEP Candidate for the Green Party in Eastern England is extending his ‘listening tour’ to Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire this coming week.

On Monday 4th May, Read will join the panel of politicians talking to the Bedford Trades Council at the Tavistock Community Centre on Princes Street in Bedford from 14.00. Afterwards he will campaign in the Bedford area into the evening.

On Tuesday 5th May, Read will make stops in the districts of Dacorum, at Berkhampstead at 12.30, and St. Albans, where he will talk about his experiences and the Green Party’s plans for the future of the region in an afternoon interview on Radio Verulam.

The tour continues in Hatfield market at 10.00 on the 6th May where Read will be joined by former London Mayoral Candidate Sian Berry, who will also accompany him for meetings with students at The University of Hertfordshire from 12:30 until departing for Central Beds in the afternoon. There, Rupert Read and Ms. Berry will join up with Green Party Councillor Ken Lynch in the town centre of Sandy at 15.30, and will also meet with Green Party Councillor Gareth Ellis.

The last leg of the tour kicks of early on Thursday 7th May as Read joins UCL Professor Bill McGuire and FREdome Trust and C-Green Solutions founder Greg Peachey on the dais at the Watford and West Herts Chamber of Commerce Networking Breakfast at Bushey Hall Golf Club in Watford at 07.15. Read then will be moving on to talk to voters in the Epping Forest area.

The Greens are mounting their strongest ever campaign for a European seat in Eastern region. With Labour struggling badly, many progressive voters are looking for an alternative.

Rupert Read, Mark Ereira-Guyer and the Green Light team will meet to discuss a safer future for us all.

The clock is ticking…We have less than 93 months left to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. We only have less than 50 days left to take the first major step, and elect another Green MEP. Time is precious. We need to act NOW!Green Light Trust (GLT), is the environmental charity dedicated to enabling people of all ages to live in harmony with nature, based in Lawshall.

Since opening its headquarters in 2006, a RIBA East award winning building known as The Foundry, GLT has been committed to assessing and reducing its carbon footprint. Employing all the best techniques in the design and build of The Foundry – including installing: a wood chip boiler; rainwater harvesting; solar panels; hemp and lime insulation; low energy light fittings and its own reed bed (both to increase biodiversity and to take responsibility for our own waste matter on site) – GLT has taken every step possible.

Nigel Hughes, co-founder and Chief Executive, says: “We are ensuring that GLT is doing everything we can to meet the governments strict new CO2 reduction targets – electing the first Green Party MEP we will be supporting the new strict CO2 reduction targets to help us all survive and thrive..”

You are invited to a meeting at UEA Norwich, 6.00 till 7.30 on Tuesday 9th June, to mark the publication of:

Feelbad Britain: How to make it better

edited by Pat Devine, Andrew Pearmain and David Purdy

This book has been written as an attempt to apply the insights and experience of several political lifetimes to the history of the past thirty years – an era characterised, above all, by the ascendancy of neoliberalism, both as a general world-view and as an approach to public policy.

As an MEP Candidate campaigning around the East Region in the last few weeks, I’ve frequently asked and been asked the question: what can June’s European Union Elections really do for Britain? And aren’t Euro-politicians all a load of sleazeballs, anyway? The results of a recent EU Public Opinion Monitoring Unit poll show these questions to be central to the perception of the EU across the country. It found that a mere 38% of UK respondents claimed interest in the upcoming elections.

How can politicians revive interest in these elections?

Perhaps, paradoxically, an opportunity has been created by this low level of interest by the public, and it is the one I want to focus on here: As each party makes preparations for a possible general election, the full crush of corporate money, spin, and slime that have come to characterize national elections has yet to fully infiltrate the Euro campaign, which is a slightly lower-key affair. So: Here perhaps is where we as candidates and elected politicians can stake our claim to make this election campaign a process that will improve the image of politics in this country. (continues)

It is outrageous that the EU may scrap legislation that requires eggs and egg boxes to be labeled according to farming methods. All eggs ought at minimum to be free-range – whereas this proposal would restrict consumers ability to know what they are buying.

Compassion in World Farming (CiWF) has recently reported that the EU Commission is discussing the possibility of repealing the current law. This requires battery eggs to be labeled as “eggs from caged hens” – legislation that CiWF and many supporters of higher welfare standards fought so hard to bring about.

As a lifelong campaigner for better treatment for animals, I am concerned that this excellent law, which has been an important contributing factor in the decline in demand for ‘battery’ eggs, is under threat. It is a disgrace that international agribusiness wants to scrap this law just so that it is easier for them to profit from animal suffering.

I pledge that if I am elected to the European Parliament here in the East of England I will oppose this threat to EU labeling law – law that is essential in providing the consumer with the necessary information needed to make a considered, moral choice. I will also support the proposed ban on battery cages due to come into force in 2012 – there should be no delay in implementation.

A vote for the Green Party on 4th June 2009 is a vote against the greed of industry lobbyists in Brussels, and a vote for legislation which benefits animals and consumers alike.

Charles Clarke is ashamed of a few stupid emails; but he is not ashamed of the pathetic failure of this government to address dangerous climate change seriously; he is not ashamed of the criminal invasion of Iraq; he is not ashamed of the government’s drip-drip sell-off of the NHS; he is not ashamed of the lax regulatory environment that led to the banking crisis…